“Nine sixteen.”
“One ticket.”
“First or second class?”
Chapter 39
Simon was out of his league. At some point in the last twelve hours his profession had changed. He was no longer a consultant for a corporation worried about industrial espionage or an investigator for a bank concerned about a larcenous trader or a recovery specialist for an insurance company tasked with retrieving a stolen watch. None of those involved having a gun aimed squarely at your chest or discovering the body of a man who’d been tortured to death with a sharp instrument. He had moved on to shakier ground. Soon, the choice of whether or not violence was required to complete his assignment might no longer be his. The list of professions that required a man to maim or kill for his country was short. He was neither a soldier nor a spy. He most certainly wasn’t an assassin. To his mind, that left one thing. He was a secret agent.
He did not like the sound of it.
Entering his hotel room, he threw off his jacket and, with haste, gathered his clothes and packed his bags. In a stroke of good fortune, he’d nabbed the last seat on the 9:16 to Marseille. Once finished packing, he called Neill.
“Mr. Riske,” said Neill. “It feels too early for you to have good news for me.”
“You’re right about that,” Simon said. “I take it you haven’t been contacted?”
“Not a peep.”
“You still think he has it?”
“Why else would he risk getting us riled up? We have no choice but to continue working on this assumption. I gather this isn’t a social call.”
“We’ve got company.”
“Oh?”
Simon brought Neill up to date on his efforts to track down Coluzzi, including his belief that Falconi was killed by a Russian assassin. He left out the part about hurting Falconi’s friends and being saved by Nikki Perez.
“Seems they’re more desperate than we are,” replied Neill.
“The person she called was in Yasenevo. I wasn’t familiar with the name, so I looked it up.”
“Now you know who we’re up against.”
“The SVR.” There he’d said it.
“Sounds about right.”
Simon exhaled loudly as he walked to the window. The sky was cloudless. The Arc de Triomphe was a few blocks in one direction. The River Seine in the other. All he had to do was say “I quit,” wire Neill back his money, and the job would be over. He could spend the rest of the day visiting the Louvre, strolling through the Jardin du Luxembourg, or even take the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower. He could be a tourist like everyone else in town at this time of year.
And then what?
He looked at his overnight bag and his case of electronic gear sitting by the door.
And then he’d have failed. He’d have failed Ambassador Shea at the London embassy. He’d have failed Barnaby Neill, and he’d have failed his country. Of course, there was more to it than that. It was no longer just about the letter. Maybe, as he’d admitted to Nikki, it never had been. Should he quit, he’d no longer have the ticket he needed to go after Tino Coluzzi, and by “ticket” he meant the official permission. The monsignor would not approve of revenge for revenge’s sake.
“I have a picture of her,” he said. “It’s blurry. I need you to clean it up.”
“Send it over and I’ll do my best,” replied Neill.
“Just do it fast. If she’s anywhere near me, I’d like to think I have a chance.”
“Does she have any idea that you’ve seen her?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“And did she see you?”
